K. Owusu-Mensa, The History of the Valley View University, GhanaDownload: Mensa's paper____________________

Ronald Lawson, Queens College, City University of New York, USAComparing The Global Growth, Geographic Distribution And Socioeconomic Status of Mormons, Adventists and Witnesses Abstract: Mormons, Adventists, and Witnesses are all “American originals”, formed in America during the nineteenth century. The fact that all three have grown rapidly and expanded globally in spite of their centralized polities raises questions concerning the significance that other researchers, and Warner’s “new paradigm”, have attached to the decentralization and flexibility of Pentecostals in accounting for the growth of the latter. This study contrasts the growth, global distribution, and socioeconomic status of their members. It finds that the three groups have sharply differing profiles: Adventists are concentrated much more in the Developing World, especially in the poorer countries; Witnesses and Mormons are proportionately much stronger in the Developed World, albeit with contrasting patterns there, and while both have expanded into the Developing World, they are found mostly in the economically more robust countries there. Adventists are not only more heavily concentrated in poorer regions, but within individual countries their members are also typically poorer than Witnesses and especially Mormons. Having explored these contrasting profiles, this article sets out to account for their differences.Download: Lawson paper 1 and table____________________

Ronald Lawson, Queens College, City University of New York, USAReassessing the Size of Mormons, Adventists and Witnesses: Exploring the Dynamics of their Global Growth and Testing the Reliability of their Membership dataAbstract: This study compares the aggregate growth of three religious groups which were born in America during the nineteenth century: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Seventh-day Adventists, and Jehovah's Witnesses. It tests the validity of the data used by Stark and Iannaccone in their studies of the growth of Mormons and Witnesses and of the projections they made concerning their future growth. This study, like those of Stark and Iannaccone, uses the official membership data of each of the three groups when comparing their growth over time and assessing a recent slowing of that growth. Then, asking how reliable these statistics are, it shows that each group employs different criteria in selecting who it counts. Noting that some studies have found wide discrepancies between the numbers identifying as Mormons in censuses conducted by certain countries and the official church membership there, it uses census data from 20 countries in all regions of the world to test the validity of the official data for all three groups. The pattern found differs considerably from group to group. The study then uses the ratios between official and census data to estimate the aggregate adherents of all three groups, which results in a dramatic reordering of their sizes.Download: Lawson paper 2 and table____________________

Nikolaus Satelmajer, Editor, Ministry, General Conference of Seventh-day AdventistAddressing the Needs of the Poor in the Midst of Theological UrgencyDownload: Satelmajer's paper____________________

Glenn O. Phillips, Morgan State University, USAFrom The Islands of The Sea: Early Caribbean Adventist Students Attending Senior Adventist College Until 1954Download: Phillips' paper____________________